looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of noses, and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains in a dying man's room. Strip it of these, what is it?" I find the moment of his death described in a singular book, the "Life of a Footman." I give it with all its particulars. "In the month of January, 1768, we set off for London. We stopped for some time at Almack's house in Pall-Mall. My master afterwards took Sir James Gray's house in Cliffordstreet, who was going ambassador to Spain. He now began house-keeping, hired a French cook, a house-maid, and kitchen-maid, and kept a great deal of the best company. About this time, Mr. Sterne, the celebrated author, was taken ill at the silk-bag shop in Old Bond-street. He was sometimes called 'Tristram Shandy,' and sometimes 'Yorick ;' a very great favourite of the gentlemen's. One day my master had company to dinner who were speaking about him; the Duke of Roxburgh, the Earl of March, the Earl of Ossory, the Duke of Grafton, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Hume, and Mr. James. John,' said my master, 'go and inquire how Mr. Sterne is to-day.' I went, returned and said,-I went to Mr. Sterne's lodging; the mistress opened the door; I inquired how he did. She told me to go up to the nurse; I went into the room, and he was just a-dying. I waited ten minutes; but in five he said, 'Now it is come!' He put up his hand as if to stop a blow, and died in a minute. The gentlemen were all very sorry, and lamented him very much*." tation of their friends that they would be united; but that on a visit Sterne became acquainted with a lady, whom he married in the space of one month, after having paid his addresses to Miss de Fourmantel for five years. The consequence was, the total derangement of intellect of this young lady. She was confined in a private mad-house. Sterne twice saw her there, and from observation on her state drew the "Maria" whom he has so pathetically described. The elder sister, at the instigation of the father of the communicator of these letters, came to England, and took charge of the unhappy Maria, who died at Paris. "For many years," says the writer of this statement, "my mother had the handkerchief Sterne alludes to." The anxious wish of Sterne was to have his letters returned to him. In this he failed; and such as they are, without date, either of time or place, they are now before me. The billets-doux are unquestionably authentic, but the statement is inaccurate. I doubt whether the narrative be correct in stating that Sterne married after an acquaintance of one month; for he tells us in his Memoirs that he courted his wife for two years; he however married in 1741. The "Sermon of Elijah," which he presents to Miss de Fourmantel in one of these letters, was not published till 1747. Her disordered mind could not therefore have been occasioned by the sudden marriage of Sterne. A sentimental intercourse evidently existed between them. He perhaps sought in her sympathy consolation for his domestic Such is the simple narrative of the death of this infelicity; he communicates to her the minutest wit! Some letters and papers of Sterne are now before me which reveal a piece of secret history of our sentimentalist. The letters are addressed to a young lady of the name of De Fourmantel, whose ancestors were the Berangers de Fourmantel, who during the persecution of the French Protestants by Louis XIV. emigrated to this country; they were entitled to extensive possessions in St. Domingo, but were excluded by their Protestantism. The elder sister became a events of his early fame; and these letters, which certainly seem very like love-letters, present a picture of his life in town in the full flower of his fame, eager with hope and flushed with success. LETTER I. "MY DEAR KITTY, mon, "I beg you will accept of the inclosed serwhich I do not make you a present of merely because it was wrote by myself, but because there is a beautiful character in it of a tender and compassionate mind in the picture given of Elijah. Read it, my dear Kitty, and believe me when I assure you that I see something of the same kind and gentle disposition in your attachment to Sterne, and that it was the expec-heart which I have painted in the prophet's, which Catholic, and obtained the estates; the younger adopted the name of Beranger, and was a governess to the Countess of Bristol. The paper states that Catherine de Fourmantel formed an Travels in various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, during a series of thirty years and upwards, by John Macdonald, a cadet of the family of Kippoch, in Invernesshire, who after the ruin of his family in 1765, was thrown, when a child, on the wide world, &c. Printed for the author, 1790."-He served a number of noblemen and gentlemen in the humble station of a footman. There is such an air of truth and sincerity throughout the work that I entertain no doubt of its genuineness. has attached me so much to you and your interests, that I shall live and die "Your affectionate and faithful servant, "LAURENCE STERNE. "P.S.-If possible I will see you this afternoon before I go to Mr. Fothergil's. Adieu, dear friend, -I had the pleasure to drink your health last night." LETTER II. "MY DEAR KITTY, "If this billet catches you in bed, you are a lazy sleepy little slut, and I am a giddy, foolish, unthinking fellow for keeping you so late upbut this Sabbath is a day of rest; at the same time that it is a day of sorrow, for I shall not see my dear creature to-day, unless you meet me at Taylor's half an hour after twelve; but in this do as you like. I have ordered Matthew to turn thief and steal you a quart of honey—what is honey to the sweetness of thee, who art sweeter than all the flowers it comes from! I love you to distraction, Kitty, and will love you on so to eternity -so adieu, and believe, what time will only prove me, that I am, "Yours." LETTER III. "MY DEAR KITTY, "I have sent you a pot of sweetmeats and a pot of honey-neither of them half so sweet as yourself-but don't be vain upon this-or presume to grow sour upon this character of sweetness I give you; for if you do I shall send you a pot of pickles (by way of contraries) to sweeten you up, and bring you to yourself again-whatever changes happen to you, believe me that I am unalterably yours, and according to your motto such a one, my dear Kitty, "Qui ne changera pas qu'en mourant. "I have arrived here safe and sound-except for the hole in my heart which you have made, like a dear enchanting slut as you are.-I shall take lodgings this morning in Piccadilly or the Haymarket, and before I send this letter will let you know where to direct a letter to me, which letter I shall wait for by the return of the post with great impatience. "I have the greatest honours paid me and most civilities shown me that were ever known from the great; and am engaged already to ten noblemen and men of fashion to dine. Mr. Garrick pays me all and more honour than I could look for: I dined with him to-day-and he has prompted numbers of great people to carry me to dine with them-he has given me an order for the liberty of his boxes and of every part of his house for the whole season; and indeed leaves nothing undone that can do me either service or credit. He has undertaken the whole management of the booksellers, and will procure me a great price-but more of this in my next. "And now, my dear girl, let me assure you of the truest friendship for you that ever man bore towards a woman-wherever I am my heart is warm towards you, and ever shall be, till it is cold for ever. I thank you for the kind proof you gave me of your desire to make my heart easy in ordering yourself to be denied to you know who— while I am so miserable to be separated from my dear dear Kitty, it would have stabbed my soul to have thought such a fellow could have the liberty of coming near you.—I therefore take this proof of your love and good principles most kindly-and have as much faith and dependence upon you in it, as if I was at your elbow-would to God I was at this moment-for I am sitting solitary and alone in my bedchamber (ten o'clock at night after the play), and would give a guinea for a squeeze of your hand. I send my soul perpetually out to see what you are a doing-wish I could convey my body with it-adieu, dear and kind girl.— Ever your kind friend and affectionate admirer. "I go to the oratorio this night. My service to your mama." LETTER V. "MY DEAR KITTY, "Though I have but a moment's time to spare, I would not omit writing you an account of my good fortune; my lord Fauconberg has this day given me a hundred and sixty pounds a year, which I hold with all my preferment; so that all or the most part of my sorrows and tears are going to be wiped away.-I have but one obstacle to my happiness now left-and what that is you know as well as I *. "I long most impatiently to see my dear Kitty. I had a purse of guineas given me yesterday by a bishop--all will do well in time. "From morning to night my lodgings, which by the bye are the genteelest in town †, are full of the greatest company.-I dined these two days with two ladies of the bedchamber-then with Lord Rockingham, Lord Edgcumb, Lord Winchelsea, Lord Littleton, a bishop, &c. &c. "I assure you, my dear Kitty, that Tristram is the fashion.-Pray to God I may see my dearest girl soon and well.-Adieu. "Your affectio nate friend, Can this allude to the death of his wife ?-that very year he tells his daughter he had taken a house at York, "for your mother and yourself." They were the second house from St. Alban's Street, Pall-Mall. HUME, ROBERTSON, AND BIRCH. enlarges his figures to a colossal dimension. Such is theoretical history. The theoretical historian communicates his THE rarest of literary characters is such an his-own character to his history; and if, like Robert torian as Gibbon; but we know the price which he paid for his acquisitions-unbroken and undeviating studies. Wilkes, a mere wit, could only discover the drudgery of compilation in the profound philosopher and painter of men and of nations. A speculative turn of mind, delighting in generalising principles and aggregate views, is usually deficient in that closer knowledge, without which every step we take is on the fairy-ground of conjecture and theory, very apt to shift its unsubstantial scenes. The Researchers are like the inhabitants of a city who live among its ancient edifices, and are in the market-places and the streets but the theorists, occupied by perspective views, with a more artist-like pencil may impose on us a general resemblance of things; but often shall we find in those shadowy outlines how the real objects are nearly, if not wholly lost-for much is given which is fanciful, and much omitted which is true. Of our two popular historians, Hume and Robertson, alike in character but different in genius, it is much to be lamented that neither came to their tasks with the previous studies of half a life; and their speculative or theoretical histories are of so much the less value whenever they are deficient in that closer research which can be obtained only in one way; not the most agreeable to those literary adventurers, for such they are, however high they rank in the class of genius, who grasp at early celebrity, and depend more on themselves than on their researches. son, he be profound and politic, he detects the secret motives of his actors, unravels the webs of cabinet councils, explains projects that were unknown, and details stratagems which never took place. When we admire the fertile conceptions of the Queen Regent, of Elizabeth, and of Bothwell, we are often defrauding Robertson of what. ever admiration may be due to such deep policy. When Hume received from Dr. Birch Forbes's Manuscripts and Murdin's State-papers, in great haste he writes to his brother historian: "What I wrote you with regard to Mary, &c., was from the printed histories and papers. But I am now sorry to tell you that by Murdin's State-papers, the matter is put beyond all question. I got these papers during the holidays by Dr. Birch's means; and as soon as I read them I ran to Millar, and desired him very earnestly to stop the publication of your history, till I should write to you, and give you an opportunity of correcting a mistake so important; but he absolutely refused compliance. He said that your book was now finished; that the whole narrative of Mary's trial must be wrote over again; that it was uncertain whether the new narrative could be brought within the same compass with the old; that this change would require the cancelling a great many sheets; that there were scattered passages through the volumes founded on your theory." What an interview was this of Andrew Millar and David Hume! truly the bibliopole shone to greater advantage than the two theoretical historians! And so the world had, and eagerly received, what this critical bookseller declared “required the new printing (that is, the new writing) of a great part of the edition !" When this successful history of Scotland invited Robertson to pursue this newly-discovered province of philosophical or theoretical history, he was long irresolute in his designs, and so unpractised in those researches he was desirous of attempting, that his admirers would have lost his popular productions, had not a fortunate introduction to Dr. Birch, whose life had been spent in In some curious letters to the literary antiquary Dr. Birch, Robertson acknowledges "my chief object is to adorn, as far as I am capable of adorning, the history of a period which deserves to be better known." He probably took his lesson from Voltaire, the reigning author of that day, and a great favourite with Robertson. Voltaire indeed tells us, that no writers, but those who have composed tragedies, can throw any interest into a history; that we must know to paint and excite the passions; and that a history, like a dramatic piece, must have situation, intrigue, and catastro-historical pursuits, enabled the Scottish historian phe; an observation which, however true, at least shows that there can be but a moderate quantity of truth in such agreeable narratives. Robertson's notion of adorning history was the pleasing labour of genius,-it was to amplify into vastness, to colour into beauty, and to arrange the objects of his meditation with a secret artifice of disposition. Such an historian is a sculptor, who, though he display a correct semblance of nature, is not less solicitous to display the miracles of his art, and to open many a clasped book, and to drink of many a sealed fountain. Robertson was long undecided whether to write the history of Greece, of Leo X., that of William III. and Queen Anne, or that of Charles V., and perhaps many other subjects. We have a curious letter of Lord Orford's, detailing the purport of a visit Robertson paid to him to inquire after materials for the reigns of William and Anne; he seemed to have little other knowledge than what he had taken upon trust. "I painted to him," says Lord Orford, "the difficulties and the want of materials—but the booksellers will out-argue me." Both the historian and "the booksellers" had resolved on another history; and Robertson looked upon it as a task which he wished to have set to him, and not a glorious toil long matured in his mind. But how did he come prepared to the very dissimilar subjects he proposed? When he resolved to write the history of Charles V., he confesses to Dr. Birch: "I never had access to any copious libraries, and do not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors; but I have made a list of such as I thought most essential to the subject, and have put them down as I found them mentioned in any book I happened to read. Your erudition and knowledge of books is infinitely superior to mine, and I doubt not but you will be able to make such additions to my catalogue as may be of great use to me. I know very well, and to my sorrow, how servilely historians copy from one another, and how little is to be learned from reading many books; but at the same time, when one writes upon any particular period, it is both necessary and decent for him to consult every book relating to it upon which he can lay his hands." This avowal proves that Robertson knew little of the history of Charles V. till he began the task; and he further confesses that he had no knowledge of the Spanish or German," which, for the history of a Spanish monarch and a German emperor, was somewhat ominous of the nature of the projected history. Yet Robertson, though he once thus acknowledged, as we see, that he "never had access to any copious libraries, and did not pretend to any extensive knowledge of authors," seems to have acquired from his friend, Dr. Birch, who was a genuine researcher in manuscripts as well as printed books, a taste even for bibliographical ostentation, as appears by that pompous and voluminous list of authors prefixed to his History of America; the most objectionable of his histories, being a perpetual apology for the Spanish Government, adapted to the meridian of the court of Madrid, rather than to the cause of humanity, of truth, and of philosophy. I understand, from good authority, that it would not be difficult to prove that our historian had barely examined them, and probably had never turned over half of that deceptive catalogue. Birch thought so, and was probably a little disturbed at the overwhelming success of our eloquent and penetrating historian, while his own historical labours, the most authentic wrote but from manuscripts. They are the true materia historica. Birch, however, must have enjoyed many a secret triumph over our popular historians, who had introduced their beautiful philosophical history into our literature; the dilemma in which they sometimes found themselves must have amused him. He has thrown out an oblique stroke at Robertson's "pomp of style, and fine eloquence," "which too often tend to disguise the real state of the facts*." When he received from Robertson the present of his "Charles V.," after the just tribute of his praise, he adds some regret that the historian had not been so fortunate as to have seen Burghley's State-papers, "published since Christmas," and a manuscript trial of Mary Queen of Scots, in Lord Royston's possession. Alas ! such is the fate of speculative history; a Christmas may come, and overturn the elaborate castle in the air. Can we forbear a smile when we hear Robertson, who had projected a history of British America, of which we possess two chapters, when the rebellion and revolution broke out, congratulate himself that he had not made any further progress? "It is lucky that my American history was not finished before this event; how many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has now happened!" A fair confession! Let it not be for one moment imagined, that this article is designed to depreciate the genius of Hume and Robertson, who are the noblest of our modern authors, and exhibit a perfect idea of the literary character. Forty-four years ago, I transcribed from their originals the correspondence of the historian with the literary antiquary. For the satisfaction of the reader, I here preserve these literary relics. Letters between Dr. Birch and Dr. W. Robertson, relative to the Histories of Scotland and of Charles V. TO DR. BIRCH. 'Though I have not the good fortune to be known to you personally, I am so happy as to be no stranger to your writings, to which I have been indebted for much useful instruction. And as I have heard from my friends Sir David Dalrymple and Mr. Davidson, that your disposition to oblige was equal to your knowledge, I now presume to write to you and to ask your assistance without any apology. "I have been engaged for some time in writing materials of history, but not history itself, hardly the history of Scotland from the death of James repaid the printer. Birch's publications are either V. to the accession of James VI. to the throne of | originals, that is, letters or state-papers; or they England. My chief object is to adorn (as far as I are narratives drawn from originals, for he never * See Curiosities of Literature, 11th edition, p. 515. am capable of adorning) the history of a period, which on account of the greatness of the events, and their close connection with the transactions in England deserves to be better known. But as elegance of composition, even where a writer can attain that, is but a trivial merit without historical truth and accuracy, and as the prejudices and rage of factions, both religious and political, have rendered almost every fact, in the period which I have chosen, a matter of doubt or of controversy, I have therefore taken all the pains in my power to examine the evidence on both sides with exactness. You know how copious the materia historica in this period is. Besides all the common historians and printed collections of papers, I have consulted several manuscripts which are to be found in this country. I am persuaded that there are still many manuscripts worth my seeing to be met with in England, and for that reason I propose to pass some time in London this winter. I am impatient however to know what discoveries of this kind I may expect, and what are the treasures before me and with regard to this I beg leave to consult you. "I was afraid for some time that Dr. Forbes's Collections had been lost upon his death, but I am glad to find by your Memoirs' that they are in the possession of Mr. Yorke. I see likewise that the Dépêches de Beaumont' are in the hands of the same gentleman. But I have no opportunity of consulting your Memoirs' at present, and I cannot remember whether the 'Dépêches de Fenelon' be still preserved or not. I see that Carte has made a great use of them in a very busy period from 1563 to 1576. I know the strength of Carte's prejudices so well that I dare say many things may be found there that he could not see, or would not publish. May I beg the favour of you to let me know whether Fenelon's papers be yet extant and accessible, and to give me some general idea of what Dr. Forbes's Collections contain with regard to Scotland, and whether the papers they consist of are different from those published by Haynes, Anderson, &c. I am far from desiring that you should enter into any detail, that would be troublesome to you, but some short hint of the nature of these Collections would be extremely satisfying to my curiosity, and I shall esteem it a great obligation laid upon me. "I have brought my work almost to a conclusion. If you would be so good as to suggest anything that you thought useful for me to know or to examine into I shall receive your directions with great respect and gratitude. "I am with sincere esteem, "Revd Sir Y' m. ob. & m. h. Sr "WM. ROBERTSON. "Gladsmuir, 19 Sept. 1757." "DEAR SIR, TO DR. BIRCH. "If I had not considered a letter of mere compliment as an impertinent interruption to one who is so busy as you commonly are, I would long before this have made my acknowledgments to you for the civilities which you was so good as to show me while I was in London. I had not only a proof of your obliging disposition but I reaped the good effects of it. "The papers to which I got access by your means, especially those from Lord Royston, have rendered my work more perfect than it could have otherwise been. My history is now ready for publication, and I have desired Mr. Millar to send you a large-paper copy of it in my name, which I beg you may accept as a testimony of my regard and of my gratitude. He will likewise transmit to you another copy which I must entreat you to present to my Lord Royston, with such acknowledgments of his favours toward me as are proper for me to make. I have printed a short appendix of original papers. You will observe that there are several inaccuracies in the press work. Mr. Millar grew impatient to have the book published, so that it was impossible to send down the proofs to me. I hope, however, the papers will be abundantly intelligible. I published them only to confirm my own system, about particular facts, not to obtain the character of an antiquarian. If upon perusing the book you discover any inaccuracies, either with regard to style or facts, whether of great or of small importance I will esteem it a very great favour, if you'll be so good as to communicate them to me. I shall likewise be indebted to you, if you 'll let me know what reception the book meets with among the literati of your acquaintance. I hope you will be particularly pleased with the critical dissertation at the end, which is the production of a co-partnership between me and your friend Mr. Davidson. Both Sir D. Dalrymple and he offer compliments to you. If Dean Tucker be in town this winter, I beg you would offer my compliments to him. "I am w. great regard Dr. Sir "Edinburgh, 1 Jan. 1759. |